All too often coarse tall fescue is incorrectly identified as crabgrass. Tall fescue is a thick-bladed perennial grass that usually grows in clumps in the middle of a lawn. Until 2024, tall fescue was not selectively controllable and could only be killed with a non-selective vegetation control like Glyphosate.  Fortunately, there is now a way to control tall fescue using a special application technique using a weed control called Tenacity.

Crabgrass is much easier to control than tall fescue because it is an annual grass. One of the easiest ways to tell the difference between tall fescue and crabgrass is based on the time of year it germinates.  Crabgrass typically germinates during the month of May and will show up in a lawn sometime around the middle of June or early July.

Crabgrass is also easily identified by its light green color and crabgrass usually grows on the edges or in thin/stressed areas of the lawn. People are often misinformed and are under the impression that crabgrass is only controllable using a pre-emergent control. Crabgrass, however, is easily controlled using a special post-emergent crabgrass killer called Drive XLR8. Crabgrass can be killed without damaging your desirable grasses. The crabgrass will die between 3-10 days after the application.